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This Is Us found major success after its pilot episode. NBC picked up the series through season 3 shortly after its premiere. In 2019, NBC renewed the Dan Fogelman creation until its sixth season. Fogelman said in multiple interviews that This Is Us will end after season 6. The writer shared the reason behind his plan to wrap the show back in Jan. 2017.

The cast of 'This Is Us,' which was created by Dan Fogelman
‘This Is Us’ cast and crew|Terence Patrick/Getty Images for Turner

Dan Fogelman had a different title in mind for ‘This Is Us’ 

Before This Is Us, Fogelman wrote several screenplays in Hollywood. Some of the writer’s earlier works include Crazy, Stupid, Love, Tangled, and Cars. He also wrote The Guilt Trip starring Seth Rogen and Barbara Streisand. Fogelman based the movie on a trip to Las Vegas with his mother, Joyce Fogelman. 

In the 2010s, Fogelman worked on a script for This Is Us. The show follows the lives of the Pearson triplets– Kate (Chrissy Metz), Kevin (Justin Hartley), and Randall (Sterling K Brown). Throughout the series, the Big Three face challenges in their thirties while mourning the loss of their father, Jack (Milo Ventimiglia). In a Glamour magazine interview, Fogelman said that the pilot episode, “36,” was almost the name of This Is Us. 

“It was originally called 36, which is the age they’re all turning at the beginning,” he revealed.

“I didn’t like it,” he continued, adding that he “had done a series of movies where I had never titled them, and no one can agree on the title. I threw 36 on it, and then I never liked it. Nobody ever liked it. I decided I liked how it looked at the beginning [of the show], and I put it in there. But, there was a lot of debate over what the title of the show was gonna be.”

Why Dan Fogelman doesn’t want ‘This Is Us’ to last after season 6

Since it debuted in Sept.  2016, This Is Us‘ tearjerker moments and real-life family issues enticed fans. Following the pilot episode, This Is Us also received an order to air through season 6. Once the series got picked up, Fogelman made it clear that season 6 will be the last season for the show. 

Although some fans were shocked that Fogelman didn’t want to keep the series on longer. The writer shared with Glamour in 2017 that he never intended to stay with the show for multiple decades. 

“’ll be dead if I do this show ten years from now ’cause it’s really hard!” Fogelman admitted. “But I think I kind of know what the next four or five or six seasons look like of this show. I don’t have every single moment planned out, but I know where the big moves are for the show in every season. Because this show plays [with] time so much, you need to have a plan.”

Fogelman teases that the show will have a ‘quiet and normal’ ending

In This Is Us season 5, the Pearsons are adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several twists and turns have occurred throughout the season, including Randall learning that his birth mother was alive for most of his life. 

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Although This Is Us is known for its plot twists, Fogelman said the series finale would smoothly wrap up the Pearsons’ story. 

“I think by the time we’re in our sixth season, you’ll have a lot of the information about what’s happened to this family, and what will be left is some resolution,” he said to The Los Angeles Times. “I think when the show eventually comes to an end, I think in the best way, it’ll be very quiet and normal. That’s always been the plan because, at the end of the day, it’s a story about this kind of regular family.”

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